The Role of the Medical Health Humanities in the Study of Mental Health in Family Medicine

While biomedical journals and medical school curricula have adopted some of the principles of the medical health humanities [1], numerous empirical texts continue to negate the social, political, cultural and economic forces which shape individual choices in the daily lived context. The principles of family medicine furthermore dictate that patient-centered healthcare and the impact of medical treatments permeate beyond the clinical sphere and act as forces upon domestic, familial, occupational and community-based settings. Historically, the patient’s mental health status and psychosocial wellbeing, in particular, have been neglected in the clinical interview and as being implicated in the aetiology, pathogenesis and chronicity of both communicable disease, and non-communicable diseases of lifestyle.